Armed with $50 mn, YuppTV forays into original content production

MUMBAI: Five months after raising $50 million funding from KKR-backed Emerald Media, OTT platform YuppTV has forayed into original content production with the launch of YuppTV Originals.

Exploring concepts beyond cinema, YuppTV Originals sets out to celebrate unconventional story telling in collaboration with the top talent from the film industry. The new content will be available in episodic format for the digital audience, exclusively on the YuppTV platform.

At the launch, YuppTV founder and CEO Uday Reddy stated, “We disrupted the entertainment sector with technology by launching YuppTV in 2006. Now with YuppTV Originals, we aim to disrupt the content space, following the needs of our evolving audience and our vision of providing high-quality engaging content. Besides, YuppTV Originals will empower the content creators by providing direct access to the audience, thereby streamlining distribution. I’d further extend heartiest welcome to our associates from the film fraternity, ensuring optimum growth for the content ecosystem.”

YuppTV Originals will initially focus on regional content while also making attempts at feature film production. To produce their first few series, YuppTV has associated with prominent production houses such as iCandy Creations, Early Morning Tales (a division of Vijayanthi Movies), TrendLoud (the digital arm of Vision Times), Madhura Entertainment and Tamada Media.

Commenting on the partnership, popular Tollywood director Deva Katta stated, “Originals provide immense creative freedom for the evolving talent in the industry. As YuppTV provides a direct reach to the audience, it will also help us pool in fresh talent and bring their creativity to the spotlight. Our partner Krishna Vijay, our company iCandy Creations and we are delighted to be part of YuppTV Originals and look forward to a prolonged partnership in producing engaging new-age content.”

YuppTV Originals’ first mini-series ‘Endukila’ is presented by Deva Katta’ iCandy Creations and is written and directed by Laxman Karya. It will be launched during Ugadi, followed by another exciting series produced by Swapna Dutt’s Early Morning Tales and directed by Nandini Reddy.

Catering to global audiences, YuppTV aims to overcome the language barrier by including subtitles and will be dubbed in other languages. It is also calling out to the industry talents to come on board and become a part of the digital evolution. Aspiring content creators and artists can reach out to the platform by writing to originals@yupptv.com.